Joe Sakic to take on bigger role – what it could mean in other areas. Plus, the Daterjinx explained

I’ve got to laugh a little first here. People who know me well at all know I’m a legendary jinxer, but honestly it’s just been that way my whole life, and yet I never stop being surprised that I got something wrong. I went on Twitter tonight and put the whammy on the Blues by thinking they would win – and I really, truly did – and they blew it in OT to the Kings. I thought the Maple Leafs would win tonight against Boston – they lost. I totally thought the Red Wings would win tonight in OT and predicted so with passion on Twitter. Nope. On and on it goes.

Want to hear some jinx stories?
– I started worrying about the Red Sox with two outs and nobody on against the Mets in 1986, in a hotel room in Cape Cod. Hadn’t worried all night to that point, when I really started fretting, they pulled the biggest choke of all time. I still blame myself, and I’m not even joking.

– In a hotel room in Minnesota in 2003, I tried to double reversejinx the Daterjinx. Red Sox were up big against the Yankees in Game 7, so I came back after an Avs-Wild playoff game that night and laid on the floor in the room and ran the faucet at full steam the rest of the night, so I couldn’t hear anything from another room (which only I would worry about in a Minnesota hotel room) and just imagined a Red Sox win the rest of the night. After about four hours on the floor plugging my ears with the faucet running, I turned on the TV at about 3 a.m. and the absolute first thing I saw was Gene Autry’s wife handing off the AL championship trophy to Joe Torre.

– Honestly, there are too many other examples just like that. I’m the Cooler, plain and simple. I’ve had a lot of good luck in my life – truly. But I have absolutely no luck in anything else, at all. If I bet on your team – go the other way. Not joking. And to any Vegas casino out there: I really might need your help some day as an employer. Do you really employ coolers, like the movie starring William H. Macy?

Enough about me. The Avs will formally give Joe Sakic a larger role with the organization soon. I expect a John Elway-type of role. I expect Craig Billington to have a bigger role with the team too, and he deserves it. Billington is one of the hardest-working guys I’ve ever met, and he should have a big-time role with the Avs once and for all now.

I do think the new Sakic-led regime would like to get the rest of the band back together. That means a possible offer to Patrick Roy to come aboard as coach. Yeah, Roy has a good situation going in Quebec, but he’s going to get bored whiling away his time in junior hockey, if he hasn’t already. I know Roy very well, and I know his ego is such that he wants to be on the big stage again eventually, as a coach or GM or both. Colorado is one of the two organizations he played for, and he has a bunch of old friends still here – including Sakic and his former backup, Billington. I expect Roy to get a query from them soon, if they haven’t already, to see what it would take to bring him back here.

– If it doesn’t work out with Roy, I think Sakic will want to make something of a bigger hire than Dean Chynoweth, the Lake Erie coach. If I read Sakic well enough, I think he values a more experienced guy. And I say that fully knowing Roy has no head coaching experience in the NHL. But I know Sakic believes that Roy is a guy who wants to win at any cost, so I think Sakic would take the chance on him in that regard.

I think Sakic would want to go with a more experienced coach otherwise, maybe a Dave Tippett-type. Maybe a Lindy Ruff. We’ll see.

I think a lot of uncertainty remains. If Roy wants to come aboard, he could take the coaching job along with something of a hybrid GM job, maybe along with Sakic and Billington. If not, maybe Sakic is a VP of hockey operations type of guy and Billington takes over the GM role outright. Or, maybe Greg Sherman somehow survives to be the GM outright, with Billington and Sakic his consiglieres.

Of course, we don’t know what role Pierre Lacroix still will have with the team. It’s still an untold story at this point. I don’t know how it will end.

If Sakic takes a bigger role-and Billington gets a promotion-I don’t see how Sherman could survive being the GM, they will want a fresh start with their own people. And as for the coaching situation, I’d imagine that Sakic would want to run things his way without interference before accepting the job-meaning that there’s almost no way that he would just promote Chynoweth and keep the status quo of hiring within.

Jon E.

Sakic isn’t ready to be a GM yet. I kinda see Billington being promoted to Asst. GM, Sakic promoted to a role in hockey operations and Sherman staying put for a few years. I’m probably one of few who doesn’t think Sherman has really done that bad of a job – he’s made some good moves for this team and he’s also resigned players to extremely reasonable deals. I don’t think the O’Reilly situation was on Sherman (though he’s in a position to obviously take the blame) as much as it was on “the Avalanche way” and as far as I’m concerned, had Pierre Lacriox’s prints all over it. Bottom line, he got signed in an unideal circumstance, but he’s still an Av. Most Avs fans just want to throw money at the situation and think it’s an automatic fix. What most Avs fans fail to remember is that spending to the cap every year is what resulted in the rebuild. Until the young guys mature and gain experience (which they should now be near/at that point) spending money isn’t going to accelerate that process. Basically, you can spit shine a turd all you want, but it’s still a turd.

Chantal

Sakic knows hockey for sure and would probably want a personnel that has a winning attitude and wouldn’t accept mediocrity. Roy certainly has all those assets. Things are getting pretty interesting.

pascalp

Give Sakic the President and Director of Hockey operations role, name Billington an assistant GM and give Roy the GM job, Dave Tippett the coaching job and get rid of both Lacroix and Sherman.
For any chance to have a real change Lacroix needs to go. He has been a brilliant GM before the salary cap era but has been, as a president, unable to understand the changes in the NHL and manage to have a good team, he has been one the people directly responsible for the fall of the organisation, both in terms of results and image.
Yes to Sakic, to Roy, to Billington and no to Lacroix

Donna

Don’t forget Footer as defensive coach.

NickQuebec

Fire Sherman !

shaker

I’m not really sold on any of those scenarios. First of all there are a bunch of guys on the roster that are going to want raises. Big ones. Is Sakic or Billington going to be detached enough to say no to them or make the right decision and stay out of cap trouble? Roy is a really emotional guy and I’m not sure that’s a good thing either. And let’s take a look at Edmonton shall we? They have been keeping guys from their glory years employed in the front office for a while now and haven’t gotten demonstrably better per se. Maybe I’m just nervous but I get a bad feeling about this.

flyfysher

Can’t get any worse than what the Avs have had for a while now. I’d be fine with it – Sakic, Billington and Roy.

shaker

Ok. Can you put a number on how many rookie mistakes we are ok with?

Chris DeMott

I think you have a valid point with the Edmonton example, except that I really believe that Craig Billington is ready to run things. Best I can tell, He has quite a Hockey mind.

shaker

I don’t know about Billington. If I were already sweeping I’d just do it all. Get Maloney,Tippet,and Burke from Phoenix,put Sakic in as head of player development,give Foote an office as his asst and work on a pres of hockey ops.

brock329

First things first, get the f rid of Shermy!!!

Ethan

Guy Boucher.

brock329

Ethan, if you watched much of the Lightning, you would not be suggesting this. The players hated him and you would never see the D-men cross the blue-line. Very conservative trap type system that is at times very boring and uninspiring. Also, with the scorers that Tampa has and to have missed the last couple years of the playoffs should also tell you something. Thanks, but no.

Leandro

This picture is sad, it was taken when the Avs was humiliated and eliminated in the playoffs by the Red Wings. Franzen destroyed us in this game 8×2 the final score. :/

Dixomatic

You saw a Yankees/Red Sox Game 7 during the NHL playoffs? Very impressive.

shaker

Time warp?

Chris DeMott

ESPN Classic

Chris DeMott

So your the guy that ruined Buckners life… I heard people committed suicide after that game. AD, that’s a heavy load to carry, my deepest sympathies. Biller, would make a great GM and that front office would go up about 10 levels in my mind if they made that move. That is also the only way I can St. Patrick working out as the coach as I remember what great chemistry those two had together as players. Otherwise put me down in the Tippett column. Say it is so Joe.

Indy

It’s kind of always about you isn’t it? Vegas would be good for you and apparently good for the Avs! We really don’t need anymore negativity around our team. Think about it!

GurnBlanston

Well, the one thing I gathered from this article is that Patrick Roy will never, ever work for the Avalanche in any way, shape or form. Why? Daterjinx.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.

Chambers covers college and professional hockey for The Denver Post. He has written for the Post since 1994, after dumping his first 9-to-5 office job a couple years out of college. He primarily follows the University of Denver hockey team and helps cover the Avalanche.